Settled confidence in the character, capability, or honesty of someone or something.
Settled confidence in the character, capability, or honesty of someone or something — a sure leaning on another's dependability.
A relational, forward-looking emotion oriented to another's reliability — not a response to suffering (compassion, sympathy) or to a benefit received (gratitude). Close to confidence (more situational) and faith (belief without proof), but trust specifically implies assured reliance on character or reliability. In Plutchik's wheel it is one of the eight primary emotions, the polar opposite of disgust (embrace vs. reject), and joy + trust combine to form love. Also heavily lexicalized in non-emotional, legal and financial senses.
Assured reliance on the character, ability, strength, or truth of someone or something.
The oldest sense, attested from c. 1200; etymologically kin to true and truth.
A fiduciary arrangement in which property is held by one party for another's benefit; also a large business combination.
The fiduciary sense is from the early 15c.; the monopoly sense (giving “antitrust,” “trust-buster”) is American, from 1877.
c. 1200, probably from Old Norse traust “help, confidence, protection,” from Proto-Germanic *traustam, from *treuwaz “having good faith,” from PIE *deru- “be firm, solid, steadfast.” Kin to true.
Attested from c. 1200 in the core sense (reliance, confidence, faith); “trustworthiness” by c. 1300. The legal/fiduciary sense emerged in the early 15c.; the American business/monopoly sense by 1877, feeding “trust-buster” (1903). The emotional core is the oldest. No reliable recent-generation shift.